Seventy-Five Years Later, I Love Lucy Is Still the Funniest Thing on Television

THE CULTURE DESK — I have reviewed television for this newspaper for many years. In that time I have liked nothing. I have not liked a single sequel. I once gave a gas-station egg salad two stars and then took one back.

So it is with some discomfort that I report the following. I Love Lucy, which premiered on CBS 75 years ago today, on October 15, 1951, is still the funniest thing on television.

I have tried to find a flaw. I watched the episodes again this week in preparation. I took notes. My notes say “chocolate,” then “grapes,” then “Vitameatavegamin,” and then the handwriting stops being legible, because I was laughing. I do not laugh. I would like that on the record.

For readers under seventy, the premise is simple. Lucy Ricardo, played by Lucille Ball, wants to be in show business. Her husband, Ricky, a bandleader played by Desi Arnaz, would prefer she did not. Their landlords and best friends, Fred and Ethel Mertz, played by William Frawley and Vivian Vance, are dragged into every scheme. Every scheme fails. That is the show, and it has never needed to be anything else.

Consider the chocolate factory. Lucy and Ethel take jobs wrapping candy on a conveyor belt. The belt speeds up. They fall behind. They begin to eat the evidence. I have seen this scene perhaps forty times. It has never once failed. Most modern comedies cannot say the same about a single joke.

Then there is the commercial for Vitameatavegamin, a health tonic that turns out to be 23 percent alcohol. Lucy keeps tasting it between takes. By the end she can no longer pronounce it. Ball does this with nothing but her face, her timing and a spoon. Entire film studios have spent less wisely.

The show also changed how television was made. According to the record, it was the first scripted program filmed on 35 mm film in front of a live studio audience. That is why it looks the way it does, and why those episodes still exist to be watched, rerun and loved. It ran 180 episodes over six seasons, and it finished first in the ratings in four of them. It was the first show to end its run at number one. It left while it was winning. I respect that more than I can say in a family newspaper.

It was followed by a series of hour-long specials. I have never liked a sequel. I will not be discussing them.

My advice, as always, is technically correct. If you have not seen I Love Lucy, watch it tonight. If you have, watch it again. Start with the chocolate. Bring a friend you trust, because you will make noises you cannot control.

I give it four stars. I do not give four stars. Do not tell anyone.